Rajiv Malhotra
Rajiv Malhotra (born 15 September 1950) is an Indian-American author and Hindu activist who, after a career in the computer and telecom industries, took early retirement in 1995 to found The Infinity Foundation. Through this organization Malhotra has promoted philanthropic and educational activities in the area of Hinduism studies. Malhotra has written prolifically in opposition to the academic study of Indian history and society, especially the study of Hinduism as it is conducted by scholars and university faculty, which he maintains denigrates the tradition and undermines the interests of India. Biography Rajiv Malhotra is an Indian–American activist, researcher, writer, and speaker on the character and place of Hinduism in the globalizing world. Rajiv Malhotra was born September 1950. He studied physics at St. Stephen's College, Delhi and computer science at Syracuse University, and was "a senior executive, strategic consultant and an entrepreneur in the information technology and media industries" until his retirement in 1994 at age 44. Malhotra took an early retirement to pursue establishment of the Infinity foundation in 1995. Currently, Rajiv Malhotra is a full-time founder-director of the Infinity Foundation in Princeton, NJ. He also serves as chairman of the board of Governors of the Center for Indic Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and as adviser to various organisations. Yvette Rosser describes Malhotra's stance toward Hinduism "as that of a ‘non-Hindutva Hindu’". Infinity Foundation The Infinity Foundation is an organisation based in New Jersey promoting Indic studies. The Foundation has given more than 400 grants for research, education and community work. The Infinity foundation has provided small grants to major universities in support of programs including visiting professorship in Indic studies at Harvard University, Yoga and Hindi classes at Rutgers University, the research and teaching of non-dualistic philosophies at University of Hawaii, Global Renaissance Institute and a Center for Buddhist studies at Columbia University, a program in religion and science at University of California, endowment for the Center for Advanced Study of India at University of Pennsylvania, and lectures at the Center for Consciousness Studies at University of Arizona. The foundation has provided funding for journals like Education about Asia and International Journal of Hindu Studies and for the establishment of Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global Non-violence at James Madison University. While the Infinity Foundation's own materials describe its purposes in terms of education and philanthropy, scholars of Hinduism and South Asia see it largely as an organization committed to the "surveillance of the Academy," and senior scholar of Hinduism in the U.S., Columbia University's Dr. Jack Hawley, has published a refutation of the foundation's characteristic charges against the study of Hinduism in North America.http://religion.barnard.edu/hinduism-here/course-challenges Criticism of American academia American academia Malhotra voices four criticisms of American academia: # "American academia is dominated by a Eurocentric perspective that views western culture as being the font of world civilisation and refuses to acknowledge the contributions of non-western societies such as India to European culture and technique". # The academic study of religion in the United States is based on the model of the "Abrahamic" traditions; this model is not applicable to Hinduism. # Western scholars focus on the "sensationalist, negative attributes of religion and present it in a demeaning way that shows a lack of respect for the sentiments of the practitioners of the religion". # South Asian Studies programmes in the United States create "a false identity and unity" between India and its Muslim neighbour states, and undermine India "by focusing on its internal cleavages and problems". In his 2003 blog Does South Asian Studies Undermine India? at Rediff India Abroad: India as it happens, Malhotra criticises the uncritical funding of South Asian Studies by Indian-American donors.[http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/dec/08rajiv.htm Rajiv Malhotra (2003), Does South Asian Studies Undermine India?] According to Malhotra: Malhotra argues that American scholarship has undermined India "by encouraging the paradigms that oppose its unity and integrity", with scholars playing critical roles, often under the garb of 'human rights' in channelling foreign intellectual and material support to exacerbate India's internal cleavages. According to Malhotra, Indian American donors were "hoodwinked" into thinking that they were supporting India through their monetary contributions to such programmes. Malhotra compares the defence of Indian interests with corporate brand management, distrusting the loyalties of Indian scholars: According to Malhotra, a positive stance on India has been under-represented in American academia, due to programmes being staffed by Westerners, their "Indian – American Sepoys" and Indian Americans wanting to be white – whom he describes as "career opportunists" and "Uncle Toms" who in their desire to become even marginal members of the Western Grand Narrative sneer at Indian culture in the same manner as colonialists once did. Malhotra has accused the academia of abetting the "Talibanisation" of India, which would also lead to the Talibanisation of other Asian countries. Wendy's Child Syndrome Malhotra has voiced criticisms of western studies of India. His 2002 "Wendy"-blog,[http://creative.sulekha.com/risa-lila-1-wendy-s-child-syndrome_103338_blog Rajiv Malhotra (2002), RISA Lila – 1: Wendy's Child Syndrome] in which he criticised the use of Freudian psycho-analysis to analyse Indian culture, was the starting point of a "rift between some Western Hinduism scholars ... and some conservative Hindus in India, the United States, and elsewhere". In this blog RISA Lila – 1: Wendy's Child Syndrome, he criticised the use of Freudian psychoanalysis to analyse Indian culture.[http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0412/features/ Amy M. Braverman (2004), The interpretation of gods. Do leading religious scholars err in their analysis of Hindu texts? The University of Chicagio Magazine'] It was the starting point of what Martha Nussbaum has called a "war" by "the Hindu right" against American scholars. The blog "has become a pivotal treatise in a recent rift between some Western Hinduism scholars—many of whom teach or have studied at Chicago—and some conservative Hindus in India, the United States, and elsewhere." Malhotra concluded in his blog: "Rights of individual scholars must be balanced against rights of cultures and communities they portray, especially minorities that often face intimidation. Scholars should criticize but not define another's religion." According to Braverman, "Though Malhotra's academic targets say he has some valid discussion points, they also argue that his rhetoric taps into the rightward trend and attempts to silence unorthodox, especially Western, views." Ideas Malhotra's work analyses and critiques Western culture, philosophy and political discourse from the perspective of a "Dharmic paradigm" or framework. Malhotra argues that India has been studied from a western perspective, but that Indians have not gazed at the west from a "Dharmic framework". He presented a more nuanced picture of the sex-scandal involving Swami Nithyananda arguing that there's more to it than what was being portrayed in Indian media. Dharmic traditions vs. Abrahamic religions Malhotra argues that there are irreconcilable differences between Dharmic traditions and Abrahamic religions. The term dharma: }} According to Malhotra, Abrahamic religions are history-centric in that their fundamental beliefs are sourced from history–that God revealed His message through a special prophet and that the message is secured in scriptures. This special access to God is available only to these intermediaries or prophets and not to any other human beings. History-centric Abrahamic religions claim that we can resolve the human condition only by following the lineage of prophets arising from the Middle East. All other teachings and practices are required to get reconciled with this special and peculiar history. By contrast, the dharmic traditions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism—do not rely on history in the same absolutist and exclusive way. According to Malhotra, Dharmic traditions claim an endless stream of enlightened living spiritual masters, each said to have realised the ultimate truth while alive on this earth, and hence, able to teach this truth to others. Unlike in the case of Dharmic traditions, the great teachers of Abrahamic traditions are not living models of embodied enlightenment. Instead, Abrahamic teachers proclaim the truth based on historical texts. The consequences of these divergent systems are enormous, and are at the heart of Dharmic-Abrahamic distinctions. Dharmic flexibility has made fundamental pluralism possible which cannot occur within the constraints of history centrism. According to Malhotra, both Western and Dharmic civilisations have cherished unity as an ideal, but with a different emphasis. Malhotra posits a crucial distinction between * A "synthetic unity" that gave rise to a static intellectualistic worldview in the west, positioning itself as Universal, and * An "integral unity" that gave rise to a dynamically oriented worldview based on the notion of Dharma. While the former is characterised by a top-down essentialism embracing everything a priori, the latter is a bottom-up approach acknowledging the dependent co-origination of alternative views of the human and the divine, the body and the mind, and the self and society. U-turn theory According to Malhotra, the Western appropriation of Indic ideas and knowledge systems has a long history. According to Malhotra, in what he calls "the U-Turn Theory", the appropriation occurs in several stages:"Are Indians buying back their own ideas from the West?" lecture at IIT Mumbai, 1 April 2013 Lecture on U-Turn Theory: How the West Appropriates Indian Culture at Lady Sri Ram College, Delhi, 26 August 2006 # In the first stage, a Westerner approaches an Indian guru or tradition with extreme deference, and acquires the knowledge as a sincere disciple. # Once the transfer of knowledge complete, the former disciple, or/and his/her followers progressively erase all traces of the original source, repackages the ideas as their own thought, and may even proceed to denigrate the source tradition. # In the final stage, the ideas are exported back to India by the former disciple and/or his followers for consumption. Malhotra cites numerous examples to support this theory, dating from the erasure of Upanishadic and Vijnanavada Buddhist influences on Plotinus to the modern day reimportation of Christian yoga into India. Another example is the influence of Vivekananda's influence on western thought, for example William James and his The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). According to Malhotra, Vivekananda's ideas have continued to exist in the West in various manifestations, for example via Aldous Huxley and his The Perennial Philosophy (1945), and the works of Ken Wilber. Malhotra's gives an overview of westerners who were influenced by Vivekananda's ideas across the generations, examining how they shaped 20th-century Western thought, and questions why much of his influence remains unacknowledged and unaccredited. }} Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines Malhotra's book Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines discusses three faultlines trying to destabilise India: # Islamic radicalism linked with Pakistan # Maoists and Marxist radicals supported by China via intermediaries such as Nepal # Dravidian and Dalit identity separatism being fostered by the West in the name of human rights. According to Bryant, both groups have used colonial Indology to construct opposing narratives which "suited their practical purposes". Brahmins attacked Dravidianism, claiming Tamil to be an integral part of the Brahmin heritage. }} This book goes into greater depth on the third: the role of US and European churches, academics, think-tanks, foundations, government and human rights groups in fostering separation of the identities of Dravidian and Dalit communities from the rest of India.[http://www.breakingindia.com/ Rajiv Malhotra (2011), Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines"] According to Malhotra: Reception Appreciation Scholars have recognized that Malhotra has been influential in sparking widespread dissatisfaction with the scholarly study of Hinduism. Hinnells considers Malhotra to lead a faction of Hindu criticism of methodology for the examination of Hinduism. Prema A. Kurien considers Malhotra to be at "the forefront of American Hindu effort to challenge the Eurocentricism in the academia." Other scholars welcome his attempt to challenge the western assumptions in the study of India and South Asia }} but also question his approach, finding it to be neglecting the differences within the various Indian traditions. In response, Malhotra points out that he does not state that all those traditions are essentially the same, that there is no effort to homogenise different Dharmic traditions, but that they share the assertion of integral unity. Criticism Martha Nussbaum criticises Malhotra for "disregard for the usual canons of argument and scholarship, a postmodern power play in the guise of defense of tradition.". Brian K. Pennington has called his work "ahistorical" and "a pastiche of widely accepted and overly simplified conclusions borrowed from the academy." Pennington has further charged that Malhotra systematically misrepresents the relationship between Hinduism and Christianity, arguing that in Malhotra's hands, "Christian and Indic traditions are reduced to mere cartoons of themselves." According to Jonathan Edelmann, one of the major problems with Malhotra's work is that he does not have a school of thought that he represents or is trained in. This fact, undermines his claims to be engaged in purvapaksa debate. Purvapaksa debate requires location in a particular place of argument. In May 2015, St. Olaf College Hindu-American scholar Anantanand Rambachan, who studied three years with Swami Dayananda, published an extensive response to Malhotra's criticisms in Indra's Net charging that Malhotra's "descriptions of my scholarship belong appropriately to the realm of fiction and are disconnected from reality.""Untangling the False Knots in Rajiv Malhotra's 'Indra's Net,' http://swarajyamag.com/culture/untangling-the-false-knots-in-rajiv-malhotras-indras-net/ According to Rambachan, Malhotra's understanding and representation of classical Advaita is incorrect, attributing doctrines to Shankara and Swami Dayananda which are rejected by them.[http://swarajyamag.com/culture/untangling-the-false-knots-in-rajiv-malhotras-indras-net/3/ Anantanand Rambachan, Untangling The False Knots In Rajiv Malhotra’s Indra’s Net (page 3)] Malhotra's epistemological foundations have also been critically questioned by Anantanand Rambachan. He does not, according to Rambachan, situate his discussion in relation to classical epistemologies or clarify his differences with these. Allegations of plagiarism In July 2015, Richard Fox Young, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, ), "Constructing Indian Christianities: Culture, Conversion and Caste" (2014, ), "Perspectives on Christianity in Korea and Japan: the Gospel and culture in East Asia" (1995, ) and "Resistant Hinduism: Sanskrit sources on anti-Christian Apologetics in Early Nineteenth-Century India" (1981, ).}} who studied Malhotra's work for an essay published in 2014, alleged that several passages of Indra's Net as well as Malhotra's (2011) book Breaking India were plagiarized. Andrew J.Nicholson and his publisher Permanent Black, agreed with Young that Malhotra plagiarised Nicholson's book Unifying Hinduism. Nicholson further noted that Malhotra not only had plagiarised his book, but also " twists the words and arguments of respectable scholars to suit his own ends." Malhotra's note 19 refers to "Nicholson 2010, pp.65, 78," not to p.14. None of these pages mentions Vivekananda. }} Permanent Black stated that they would welcome HarperCollins "willingness to rectify future editions" of Indra's Net.[http://permanent-black.blogspot.nl/2015/07/unifying-hinduism-statements-from.html Unifying Hinduism: Statements from the Author and from the Publisher] In a response Malhotra stated "I used your work with explicit references 30 times in Indra’s Net, hence there was no ill-intention," and provided a list of his references to Nicholson.[http://swarajyamag.com/culture/nicholsons-untruths/ Nicholson's Untruths] He announced that he will be eliminating all references to Nicholson and further explained: Publications Books * Rajiv Malhotra (2011), ''Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines (Publisher: Amaryllis; ISBN 978-8-191-06737-8) * Rajiv Malhotra (2011), Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism (Publisher: HarperCollins India; ISBN 978-9-350-29190-0) * Rajiv Malhotra (2014), Indra's Net: Defending Hinduism's Philosophical Unity (Publisher: HarperCollins India; ISBN 978-9-351-36244-9) * Rajiv Malhotra (forthcoming), Battle for Sanskrit: Dead or Alive, Oppressive or Liberaing, Political or Sacred? Other publications * * * * Key online writings * [http://creative.sulekha.com/risa-lila-1-wendy-s-child-syndrome_103338_blog Rajiv Malhotra (2002), RISA Lila – 1: Wendy's Child Syndrome] * [http://creative.sulekha.com/problematizing-god-s-interventions-in-history_103442_blog Rajiv Malhotra (2003), Problematizing God's Interventions in History] Involvement * Antonio de Nicolas, Krishnan Ramaswamy, and Aditi Banerjee (eds.) (2007), Invading the Sacred: An Analysis Of Hinduism Studies In America (Publisher: Rupa & Co.) See also * François Gautier * Madhu Kishwar * Kanchan Gupta * Arun Shourie * Kali's Child * Anantanand Rambachan * Bengali renaissance * Indian independence movement * Neo-Vedanta * Postcolonialism * Anti-Hinduism * Invading the Sacred Notes References Sources Published sources * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Web-sources Further reading '''Malhotra's criticisms * * * Background information * * * * External links Malhotra * rajivmalhotra.com * The Infinity Foundation * Huffington Post – Blog by Rajiv Malhotra Responses * [http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kalischi/tantrictruth.html Jeffrey J. Kipal, The Tantric Truth of the Matter. A Forthright Response to Rajiv Malhotra]